Very cool game and I have started over many times as I slowly get the feel of the game. The amount of ships and weapons is quite overwhelming. How did everyone learn ship-weapon combinations. Trail and error or is there some where to read up on it?
I was having the hardest time with colonies – constant harassment by pirates was turning them from a profit center to a liability almost immediately after building them. Turns out I was doing it before I really had the budget to do it right. You need to be able to immediately add a bunch of additions, so saving up around a million credits is prudent and makes it go much more smoothly.
This video is helpful (wish I’d seen it before I build my current base was built – I’ve defended the last few attacks but it’s been a challenge; I started off with just under half of what I should have had).
Thrag
718
For my tiny fleet I started with the built in loadouts and after staring at and comparing numbers like op, DPS, and Flux per second making small adjustments.
The ships I’ve made major changes to are my support ships. They are mainly stripped of weapons so I can use the OP for mods like survey equipment, expanded fuel/cargo/ and mods to increase burn or combat speed. Their only role should they get caught in combat is to flee.
Scotten
719
After some limited playing, I find I have 2 decent beefs about the interfaces:
Mentioned above - buying things. Do I really have to Shift-Click 100 times if I want to buy 100 crew?
Different mouse button used for moving on different screens. Example: on the map screen: it’s a right click to move to a planet or base. On the main “action” screen: it’s a left click (right click turns on free move). Or should I just remap keys (not sure I saw these in the settings)?
As was covered above you can hold shift-hold click-drag right and left to change quantity quickly-release click to complete.
This drives me nuts too. Consistency please!
@Scotten this is correct. It should look like this:
In addition, ctrl-click on the item for sale will automatically put the quantity at what you need to max that item. So if you need 158 supplies to hit your capacity, ctrl-click will automatically select 158 of them for purchase.
Is there any way to Sell All? Its a massive PITA selling every individual stack of guns after a couple late game battles. I’ve looked for a way but me not finding something isn’t necessarily indicative of its non-existence. I missed the question mark at the top of the refit screen for quite awhile.
If there isn’t, as long as you can filter it by catagory (All, Resources, Ship Weapons, etc) a sell all button would really be a godsend. In a perfect world where Sell All existed, you could shift-click stuff in your inventory to lock them with a protected status to really get needless clicking to a minimum. Well, that’s how I’d handle it.
Thrag
723
The difference in battle controls is the #1 reason I savescum. I can’t count the times I dropped shields when I wanted to switch to free look mode.
Thrag
724
Ctrl-click
edit: Oops, you meant all stacks
Thrag
725
Something I picked up on recently that other new players might not have noticed. You can capture the nav buoys and sensor arrays. Nav buoys give +2 burn to your fleet and sensor arrays give +400 range to your sensors.
I ended up in a system with one world held by the Persean League, one by the Luddic Path, and another by Pirates. The Path had ownership of a buoy and a sensor array so I took control of them both. I am faster than all their fleets now and can spot them from far off. Plus, they keep trying to take back the buoy and array so I am getting a semi-constant new stream of new small fleets to pick on. With the one League world I have an in system place to sell or store the spoils.
I find it’s generally more helpful to Hack those than to take control of them, unless you are planning on colonies in the sector. That way you dont have to worry about getting the bonuses lost the moment you fly away. And the hacks last 3 months which is way longer than you’ll need to be in the system.
The extra sensor range is nice to find pirate/luddic bases and the burn speed to catch or avoid enemy fleets, so if you’re nearby they are worth a quick hack.
Do I need to install Java in order to run this game?
Thrag
729
I’ve been working my League/Path/Pirate system hard. Intercepting all their fleets. Raiding the Path and Pirate bases to keep their stability at zero. This is causing these worlds to generate contracts for goods they are short on. I just took a contract to deliver 500 fuel to the Path world I’ve been raiding. I basically sold back to them the fuel I’ve been accumulating from destroying their fleets for 75k.
Does anyone know if you can drive a faction off a core world by keeping their stability zero long enough? I wonder if I keep this up can I poach the Path’s world from them.
Thanks for the info. Just purchased the game, looks like a lot of fun.
If a world stays at “low” stability for long enough, it will essentially cease to exist. I’ve seen this happen a handful of times, but am not clear on exactly what the triggers for it are, outside of being stability related.
There is a mod that adds invasions to the game, and has the factions kind of organically wipe each other out over time. Nexerelin or something like that. It adds some feeling of depth to the universe imo. Plus a way to just obliterate any faction you really dislike.
I like taking over the arrays in a system housing a sekret Pirate base, just before I plan to attack. They always come running to re-take it, usually leaving the base undefended. Thanks, Pirates!
Couple new noob questions:
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I just started getting monthly maintenance charges hitting me to the tune of 17k a month, up to this point I assume the easy setting had me collecting a salary or something that defrayed this cost which I’m now taking the full hit for, or something along those lines. My question is, is this the time I need to consider getting a colony going? If so, is 600k enough to do it w/o immediately getting harrassed to the point it’s not cost effective? I’ve seen the million dollar number thrown around as the threshold for this, do I need to go track down another 400k? Because these monthly expenses are going to start eating into my savings and put me on a monthly treadmill clock where I need to run profitable missions just to stay even. So, want to know what people do at this point.
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On my last survey mission I found a synchrotron core, given that the value is 400k I stuffed in in corvus with the rest of my stuff and wanted to come here first to find out if this is something you keep for the colony or sell, my assumption is keep so that’s what I’ve done. Only found corrupted nano forges so far, assume I need to keep hunting for a pristine.
Thanks for taking a look at my latest couple of questions.
I saved up 500k for my first base in this session, and after repeatedly being knocked back on my heels with a disabled starport, I wished I had waited. Running a couple of good survey clusters should put you over the top (I usually try to grab 3+ on one the side of the map and hit them in one go).
That said, I also realized that a colony without “Free port” status is much less likely to be harassed by anyone but pirates, making that a good strategy while you’re still setting up your defenses. But the pirates will still be a problem that could set you back, especially if you can’t quickly put an orbital station in (and get it upgraded in short order) along with the basic ground defense.
Thanks for the answer on the base! I’ll keep trying to save some more dough for it before pulling the trigger.
Do you also think I should hang on to the synchrotron core? Other than knowing how valuable they are based on what I can sell it for, I don’t know how hard they are to come by or how useful they are because to be honest I’m not entirely sure what it is or used for…
